Cool Math Game: With a Fly Swatter

We love cool math games, especially for our kids who don’t like “school” – you know the sit and learn from a book “organized” school? We homeschool so I am constantly looking for ways to bring the learning to life – especially for my son. Flyswatter math is a huge hit! I think it has made it into our list of “Friday” learning activities. Flyswatter math combines the fun of moving and slapping with the chance to learn number recognition and solving math problems.
.
We got a big piece of butcher paper out and wrote down all the numbers between 0 and 50. You can make this smaller for sure, but we are working on recognizing the larger numbers so we went for the big scale version.
.
With this cool math game, you can have a lot of different versions of learning:

• With a preschooler, play number I Spy, “Can you find the number 4?   Hint: it is Red”
• Use the worksheet, and instead of answering with words have him slap the correct answer with the swatter.
• Ask him to go in order and find all the even numbers, or count by fives.
• Ask him to count backwards (great for helping develop skills he’ll use with subtraction later).
• Use flash cards and see how fast he can swat the correct answer.
• Is the fly swatter getting old?   Try mixing it up by having him tap the answer with his elbow or his nose.
• Lay the paper on the floor and stack the corresponding amount of an item (ex: legos) on top of the number.

.

This is a great way to get your kids moving while they are learning.   Do you have any activity suggestions for a kinetic kiddo?   If so, I would love to hear about them!   Feel free to leave a comment here or link up a blog post to our facebook wall so others can check out your activity!!